Is Mumbai India's 9/11? It's Not That Simple

By Lakshmi Chaudhry, TheNation.com. Posted December 4, 2008.

The 9/11 test also requires that the perpetrators be incontrovertibly "foreign," preferably linked in some way to Al Qaeda, which has become a discursive shorthand for the irremediably "other," fanatical extremist Muslims at war against the West. To debunk the "Indian 9/11" claim, therefore, some outlets pushed to definitively establish the identity of the terrorists as Indian, at times invoking a degree of callousness that would have been remarkable in the wake of any other such event. Claims by New Delhi of a Lashkar-e-Taiba/Pakistan connection were brushed aside as mere political posturing, a typical reflexive attempt to avoid responsibility for its own failings. "There are a lot of very, very angry Muslims in India," Fair told the Times. "You cannot put lipstick on this pig. This is a major domestic political challenge for India." Susan Sontag was publicly lynched for saying far less in her post-9/11 New Yorker piece.

The Guardian's Jason Burke offered this astonishingly confident theory, even before the events on the ground had fully unfolded" "Even if...there is some involvement, rogue or otherwise, by the Pakistani security establishment, autonomous Pakistani jihadi groups or a more direct link to al-Qaida, it will have been alienated and angry young Indian Muslims who heeded the call to arms." If the terrorists were Indian Muslims -- or even now, as some claim, if there was some kind of assistance offered by local groups, be it terrorist or mafia -- then the calamitous events can be safely labeled an "internal" problem.

The problem with the 9/11 litmus test is that it relies on an inside/outside distinction that is untenable in any nation with a significant Muslim population. In this age of global terror, where borders are no protection against the transfer of ideology, people or resources, the domestic/foreign distinction is becoming impossible to sustain when labeling terrorist groups. These days, we can play the Kevin Bacon game with any given Islamic jihadi group and come up with an Al Qaeda connection. Even if the so-called Deccan Muhajeddin did exist and were entirely comprised of radicalized Indian Muslims, their established Kashmir connection makes them a hop, skip and jump away from the Taliban and Al Qaeda (many of whose members fight/have fought on the Kashmir front). If, as the Indian government claims, this is the handiwork of the Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba , then the ties are even closer. According to known intelligence, LeT members have embedded themselves with Taliban units in Afghanistan to gain battle experience, and an Al Qaeda lieutenant was captured in one of its camps in 2002.

In terms of ideology, any Muslim minority that is alienated and underprivileged is likely to include Al Qaeda sympathizers, be it in Britain, France, Germany or India. If the British Muslims who masterminded the London subway bombings are part of the the international jihad, then why not homegrown Indian extremists? Muslim alienation at home is connected to Muslim alienation at the global level. And while their individual priorities may differ, radical Islamic groups around the world share a worldview which sees Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq and Gujarat (genocide of Indian Muslims) as part of a global assault on Islam.

The most telling argument against the inside/outside classification is the reality that fighting terrorism in India -- at least the Islamic kind (Indian terrorists include Tamils, Marxist-inspired Naxalites, Hindu fundamentalists and, previously, Sikhs) -- will require an international solution. Yes, New Delhi will have to take significant steps to address the real grievances of Indian Muslims, but apart from the recent emergence of the Indian Mujahedin, they have not been the primary recruiting ground for terrorists -- contrary to what Hindu fundamentalists like to claim. Ending Islamic terrorism requires a sustainable Kashmir settlement and hence dealing with Pakistan, and therefore a stable, strong Pakistani government that is not just willing but also able to negotiate a genuine peace, which in turn requires stability and order in Afghanistan, all of which will entail a significant role for the United States. Such is the reality of our post-9/11 world.

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Lakshmi Chaudhry is a senior editor at In These Times and a former senior editor of AlterNet.

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